Think about how many hours you’ve wasted this year worrying about how well your competitors are doing. The meetings where you focused on how to get ahead. The private angst when your numbers wobbled and theirs stayed steady. Can you name one time when your business gained an advantage by obsessing about the competition?

There’s no doubt we could all benefit from adopting an ostrich mindset. The myth is that the ostrich buries her head in the sand in an attempt to hide when she’s threatened. That’s only part of the story. What she’s actually doing is tending to the eggs she has laid in a shallow hole in the ground—turning them over in the nest with her beak.

We have far more chance of creating an impact when we direct our energy towards things we can influence and change.

Image by Mike Cilliers.